About 32 million Egyptians, who live below the poverty line, are covered by social protection programmes, according to the cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC).
The social safety net includes cash support programmes, namely: social security; Takaful and Karama; as well as the Decent Life initiative, set up by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. According to the IDSC, the number of pensioners and beneficiaries reached 10 million citizens over the past two years.
Egypt’s proportion of the population living below the poverty line, defined as anyone living on less than EGP 857 a month, fell to 29.7% during the past two fiscal years, the government recently announced.
This comes after a large hike in fiscal year (FY) 2017/18, when it stood at 32.5%. Over the past two years, the rate of extreme poverty in Egypt also decreased, to 4.5% from 6.2% in FY 2017/18.
The IDSC indicated that the government also increased the number of outlets affiliated to the Ministry of Supply, developed existing ones, and added new mobile outlets to sell food at reduced prices.
Financial aid allocations in the Egyptian state budget increased in FY 2019/20, recording EGP 18.5bn, and cover the Takaful and Karama cash transfer programmes and social security pensions.
According to the IDSC, the number of beneficiaries under the cash transfer programmes currently stands at 3.8 million households in FY 2019/20.
Following the economic reform programme adopted by the Egyptian government in November 2016, the state has improved its social protection programmes. These improvements aim to shield the poor and the vulnerable from the negative consequences of the reforms.
